Letters, Vol 1 No. 2

RE: The Crude Truth About Oil

Sir,

While I appreciated the enthusiasm behind your reviewer's impassioned defence of the Sons of Dovre, I feel the need to point out that my non-fiction opus The Crude Truth About Oil is not in fact an indictment of the petroleum industry. Rather, it is a feminist critique of the olive oil military-industrial complex.

Initially, I aimed to address patriarchal structures inherent in the reificiation of "extra virgin" oil. Many a young woman has made the choice to "cast her stone" as a bold declaration of liberty from her oppressors, and no one exercising this necessary freedom of choice should be made to feel ashamed. Modern feminism has conclusively concluded that a women is as fresh and fragrant after her fiftieth pressing as after her first.

I will be attending the annual Equinor Literary Festival of Bømlo next month, where I will be speaking in defence of my work. I look forward to a personal apology from Mr. Trollfossen, who will perhaps have taken the time to read my book by that date. The crude truth about Mr. Trollfossen, it seems, is that he is unqualified to work for a publication of your stature.

Klem,

Thea-Sophie van Schlanbusch-Eissenhover
Holmenkollen, Oslo

A sincere thank you

Sirs,

I was delighted to note your atypically perceptive review of the Five Under Five anthology, and appreciated your reviewer's deep analysis of my poem, The Sun.

In particular, I wanted to express my gratitude to your reviewer for being one of the few to recognise what I had initially felt was an obvious homage to Japanese poetic tradition, not merely in the work's syllabic structure but also in the deployment of concepts such as the kireji and kigo, drawn of course from the recommended saijiki.

However, I admit to a slight sense of disappointment that your reviewer either failed to notice or chose not to comment on my post-colonial problematisation of the conceit that the sun is "yellow", whereas stars more advanced in their development are commonly regarded as "white". It strikes me as implausible that anyone could read the lines "It is yellow/I like the sun" without having noticed this essential point.

Sincerely,

Ramona de Pfeffel Smith (age 5)

P.S. I did reelly tiped this. Not mummy.

Technical issues?

Hallaien igjen! At one o'clock yesterday morning I concluded an enjoyable session of browsing your first edition. 17 million kroner of tax payer money well spent! :) Unfortunately, I found myself unable to purchase the elegant yet understated BømLove T-shirt available through your web store. As you know, I am a huge supporter of the Bømlo cotton industry, and would have welcomed the chance to support that industry by buying a T-shirt to support the hard-working cotton pickers of Sunnhordland. Am I just pressing the wrong button, or were there some unreported technical issues with your website? Probz jus me :( Please let me know, I can't show up at Abid Raja's without his Xmas pressie!!

Erna Solberg
Oslo

Celebrating Bømlovian culture... or Bergensian culture????

As the founding President of USB (United States Bømlovenner), and a lifelong friend of Bømlovian culture, I was delighted to receive my copy of the Bømlo Review of Books, Vol.1 No.1. Imagine my dismay, though, when I realized that your so-called "Review" has already turned its back on Bømlovian culture, choosing instead to focus primarily on the degenerate inhabitants, and pompous self-aggrandising literati, of Bergen. What attraction can you possibly imagine Norway's capital of crime holds for the average reader? By my rough estimate, 97.6% of the articles in your first edition refer to non-Bømlovian issues, whereas only around 11% of the articles have the slightest connection to Bømlo. That you persist in using Bømlo's name and brand for publicity purposes is utterly outrageous... and, in the long run, as profoundly pointless as if the denizens of Plato's allegorical cave had chosen to speak entirely in hieroglyphics, instead of carefully inscribing their thoughts on the Rossetta Stones.

Med Bømlovennlig hilser,

John 'Jon' Johnson
Minneapolis